


Begin from your name

by Archangel06



Series: Red sand, silver light [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Din Deserves Nice Things, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prequel, Therapy, kind of, somone please take care of Din
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29333964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel06/pseuds/Archangel06
Summary: He felt like a wounded animal crawling around in search of a place where to die- he didn’t know where to go, what to do with himself and with the damned Darksaber that swung at his hip, clacking against his cuisse. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be the king; he didn’t want to be around other Mandalorians (or just about anyone really) to begin with. He wanted to find a place where he could curl in a ball and pretend that the galaxy didn’t exist.Din Djarin goes back to Tatooine in search of a quiet place. A prequel to "Consolation".
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth
Series: Red sand, silver light [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155965
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53





	Begin from your name

Din couldn’t say why, of all places of the whole wide galaxy, he had decided to go back on the dustball that was Tatooine.

After Grogu had been taken by the Jedi, he had sort of… stopped. He didn’t have a goal anymore, because his little green bean of a child was safe and sound. All the energies that had been directed outside, towards fighting and fleeing and loving his baby were now free to flow inwards, forcing him to face the fact that he had broken the Creed, that he had shown his face and now he wasn’t a Mandalorian anymore but an exile, a renegade.

Or was he? Bo Katan and her Nite Owls didn’t seem to think that he wasn’t a Mandalorian- quite the contrary. Sure, Bo Katan was beyond furious that he, and not her, had ended up with the Darksaber, but she hadn’t tried to take it from him, hadn’t questioned his right to be the new Mand’alor. If she had thought that he wasn’t a Mandalorian, she would have gone for his throat.

He felt like a wounded animal crawling around in search of a place where to die- he didn’t know where to go, what to do with himself and with the damned Darksaber that swung at his hip, clacking against his cuisse. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be the king; he didn’t want to be around other Mandalorians (or just about anyone really) to begin with. He wanted to find a place where he could curl in a ball and pretend that the galaxy didn’t exist. Mos Pelgo was probably the best place to do so- it wasn’t even on the maps.

Most of Moff Gideon’s bounty had gone towards a new ship, and the Republic officer that had taken the bastard in had told him that he could sue the Imp for the destruction of the Razor Crest.

“Sue… him?”

“Sure! The Republic will probably want to dismantle that light cruiser, and if you sue, you’ll get compensation for your ship. Might take a while and you’ll have to hire a lawyer, but it’s going to be even more charges piled up on him… not that there’s truly need of any more. This charming fellow won’t be seeing the outside of a cell anytime soon.”

Din had refused. He would have to live on Coruscant and still see the bastard and… no, it was just too much for a handful of credits. With his part of the bounty, he bought a second-hand ship and booked it towards Tatooine, hoping to just disappear in the Sea of Dunes.

Peli Motto was still there, overseeing the little empire that was her garage.

“Why, my favourite walking tin can!” she exclaimed as she saw him descending from the ramp of his new ship. “Got yourself a new ship? That flying trash can of yours finally kicked the bucket, eh? Well, you could do worse than this, to be sure. You could still do better, mind you, but you could do worse.” She then moved her gaze towards Din. “You on the other hand seem quite the worse for wear” she pronounced, eyeing him critically. “And” she added, softening her tone “I don’t see the baby…” the words hung unspoken in the dry and hot hair. _Where is he? Is he dead?_

“Grogu is ok. He’s with… where he’s supposed to be.” Din rushed to say, hoping to stave off more questions. Peli slowly rose an eyebrow.

“Ah” was all she said, and Din had the horrible sensation that, despite the solid barrier of beskar between them, her eyes were piercing through it and staring right into his soul. “Well, good then. I’m glad to hear that the little raisin is fine and dandy. What can I do for you?”

“I… I am going back to Mos Pelgo. Visiting an old friend. I need a speeder and a place where to leave the ship.” Why did he feel the need to justify his every move?

“If you plan to stay longer than a week, then you’ll have to move your Flying Trash Can II on the long- term parking spots” she stated, still staring at him. “I need the space in the garage for other customers.”

“Yes. Ok. I… I’ll move the ship and… I’ll come back, for the speeder.”

Some thirty minutes later, he was speeding off into the sunset, having refused Peli’s offer of hospitality. He didn’t care about the fact that the wastelands of Tatooine were more dangerous at night. His mind was fixated on reaching Mos Pelgo, as if in that little town in the asscrack of nothing he could find… what? He didn’t know.

***

The nights on Tatooine were cold, and a slight breeze pushed sand _everywhere_ , no matter how many layers of cloth one wore. Without quite meaning to do so, he stopped on the crest of a particularly high dune, dismounted from the speeder, and slowly sank on the ground, staring at the vast, empty darkness that surrounded him. The red sand was now bathed in the silvery grey light of the three moons. Nothing moved.

The silence was absolute. The coolness of the sand seeped under his clothes. Slowly, he took off his helmet: there was no one who could judge him here. The vast, sandy expanses simply accepted that he was there, that he was alive, and didn’t care about such things as dishonour and grief. When he was around other people, he felt that if he removed his armour he would disintegrate: his whole identity had been shattered like a mirror and ground to a fine dust. He was clinging desperately to the last shards, trying to see himself again, hale and whole, and not as a distorted, unrecognizable creature. Here it didn’t matter who he was: here the only identity required was “living being”, with no superstructures, codes, traditions. As he opened himself to the night, in turn the night opened itself to him and embraced him, and it was the calm, restful darkness that protects the sleeping animals from predators, that brings rest and healing. Din didn’t know how long he stayed there, sitting, willing his own sense of self to disperse in the echoing vastness.

***

He came back to his senses an indefinite amount of time later, when his body rudely reminded him that he was still alive, no matter how little he liked it, and he had to relieve himself. After that, he remounted on the speeder, and only stopped to eat, drink, or relieve himself.

When he finally reached Mos Pelgo and dismounted in front of the cantina, he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him, and had to steady himself on the speeder. Why did everything feel so… distant? Dreamlike? He watched himself move into the cantina, where he was greeted with surprised cheers.

“The Dragonslayer! The Mandalorian!!”

“The Marshal” he said quietly. “I would like to see the Marshal.”

“He’ll be helping old Jo with the bantha pens right now” said the barman with a smile. “Have you eaten anything? You look like you’re about to faint. There’s a private room in the back, go there and I’ll bring some good food for you. The Marshal will be here presently as soon as he hears that you’re back. Don’t you even think about it, Dragonslayer.” He said firmly, pushing back the handful of credits. “For you, today it’s on the house.”

In that peculiar dreamlike state he found himself in, Din could only say “thank you”, and vaguely wonder why he was treated like a hero. He wasn’t. He had only killed the Krayt to get the armour back, not to mention his other failings.

He sank on the padded bench, grateful to be finally sitting on something that didn’t move or vibrate. Food arrived soon after, and the door was shut firmly. Still, he didn’t remove his helmet.

An indefinite amount of time later, there was a knock at the door, and the Marshal himself came in, with a huge smile.

“ _Mando!_ ” he greeted him, clearly glad. “Why, of all the people… what brings you back here?”

“Hi. Uhm… I just… need a place where to stay for a while. Somewhere quiet.” It was all he managed to get out. The Marshal cocked his head on the side, suddenly suspicious.

“That might be managed- but I don’t want you to bring back any danger to my town…”

“No danger. I only need a place where… where I can think.” Urgh. Why did his brain feel so full of bantha wool? Getting words out was getting increasingly difficult.

“Think, eh? A dangerous thing, that. But you are a dangerous man. Well then, welcome back to Mos Pelgo. We don’t have hotels here, so you’ll have to content yourself with rooming with someone. As a matter of fact, I do have a spare room, if you wish.”

“That would… work. Thank you. I can pay rent.” Was the room moving? Was the Krayt back? No, impossible, he had killed the Krayt. The Marshal shot him a worried look.

“Mando, you look absolutely exhausted” he stated. “We can talk about it when you are not about to keel over, eh? Come on, Mando. My house is not far.”

Blessedly, the house was not far, and the inside was cool and dark. The Marshal half guided, half carried him to a bed, where he collapsed without removing his beskar. He was asleep before his head touched the mattress.

***

He opened his eyes, blinking. The visor of the helmet automatically adjusted to the night vision, and he took in his unfamiliar surroundings.

_Oh, right. I am in the Marshal’s home._

Slowly, he sat up: his neck and back ached after sleeping for the stars knew how long in the armour, and he stretched and cracked his joints with a groan. A smell of food floated to his nostrils, and his stomach growled loudly and painfully in response. Din sighed: so he was still alive, and his body was very rudely reminding him that it wanted to keep being that way, thank you very much, so off you go and find food. Now.

“Ah, so you are awake!” grinned the Marshal. “Almost thought you had died on me, you were sleeping so soundly. It’s been almost an entire day, you know. Today the menu is bantha stew, that works for you?”

“I have had worse” shrugged Din, and sat down at the table. The house was very spartan, he noticed: Tatooine was not a rich planet, and in Mos Pelgo everyone was still only scraping by. It was comforting, though. Here the people were simple and direct, with very little in the way of social norms and complex rules of etiquette. The mere thought of what he would have had to deal in the Core was nauseating, especially in his state of mind.

If the Marshal was surprised to see him sit at the table instead of taking the food to his room, he didn’t show it. They ate in companionable silence with Din partially lifting the helmet as he brought food to his mouth, then the Marshal pushed away the bowl with a satisfied sigh.

“So” he started, amicably. “About the rent. I was thinking that you could pay by helping me with the town. Doing small repairs, dealing with the Tuskens, breaking bar brawls… that kind of stuff. An extra pair of hands is always welcome. You could work as my deputy, how’s that as a proposal?”

Din shrugged. It didn’t make any difference for him, but he certainly couldn’t demand that these good people feed and house him for free. “A fair deal. I could also teach you more of the Tusken sign language.”

“Splendid! I have tried repeating the signs you made the last time, but somehow I always have the sensation that the Tusken are laughing at me.” He chuckled. “But this can wait for a few days. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so exhausted as you were yesterday, Mando, not since I was a slave.” His face was genuinely worried. “I won’t press you for details, but if you need to talk…”

No. He wanted to forget. He wanted to shut away the pain and forget it existed, he didn’t want to talk and relive everything. Not now. He made a non- committal shrug. “I’m okay” he said, knowing full well that he wasn’t.

Cobb looked thoroughly unconvinced, but didn’t insist.

***

For the first few days, ad the Marshal’s insistence, Din rested. He helped with chores around the house, such as sweeping sand from the floor, replacing gaskets, taking out the trash, maintaining the condensers, and so on: when the Marshal decreed that he had recuperated, he started to go out with Cobb for his daily rounds. The list of things to do was endless, and at night he was so exhausted that his sleep was blessedly dreamless. Repairing pens, herding banthas, looking for lost banthas, looking for lost children, helping with building maintenance, mediating quarrels, mediating with the Tusken… and, much to his surprise, even celebrating weddings.

Since Cobb was the closest thing to an authority figure that Mos Pelgo had, he doubled as the registry office: he recorded weddings, births, graduations, divorces, deaths and whatever important event happened. He had a holo-pad where each of those events was ceremoniously and solemnly recorded.

It was midnight, and they were going home after much revelry. They had celebrated a wedding that afternoon, and there had been food and dancing and rivers of spotchka: Din had to admit that he had drunk way more than he should have, never quite managing to empty his glass before a friendly Pelgian came around to fill it.

They collapsed on the old and battered couch.

“Well, that was fun!” declared Cobb.

“Do you think that they will have children?” asked Din, the words getting out of his mouth without him quite intending to. The liquor was currently spreading in his body, warm and soft, and making everything… distant. Not exactly unimportant. Grogu could never be unimportant… but the pain was dulled. Was this why people turned to the bottle?

“Uh. I don’t know. I hope so- children are the future” said Cobb, solemnly. “But children are a big commitment. If they don’t feel like it, I understand… but I hope they will.”

“Yes… children are the future” agreed Din. “This… this is a good place for children” he said. He wished he and Grogu could have stopped here. For a while, at least. Like they had done on Sorgan.

“This?” Cobb snorted, incredulous. “Man, you _are_ drunk!”

“It is!” insisted Din, his voice heating. “Sure, it isn’t rich. The land is harsh. But now that the bandits and the Krayt are gone and you have a peace agreement with the Tusken, this becomes the kind of place where people are reminded that they need each other in order to survive.” He swayed a little. “This would have been a good place for my child. It could have been the closest thing to a covert I could have managed for him. Sorgan, too… we stayed in Sorgan for a while, but the hunters were coming for him. The village where we hid, was much like Mos Pelgo… he loved it there. He would have loved it here.” His voice choked on the last words.

There was silence for a while. Then Cobb spoke, hesitantly. “Mando… what happened to the child?”

“He is alive. With… his people. Well, to the closest thing to his people that I could find. He is a Jedi, you know.”

“A _Jedi_?”

“A Jedi. He can move things with his mind” said Din, moving his hand in a vague imitation of the gesture that Grogu made when using his powers. “That’s why the Empire… this one Imperial officer named Moff Gideon, to be specific… wanted him. They wanted to do… things with his blood. I think that Moff Gideon wanted a transfusion of Grogu’s blood to get the power to move things with the mind… we found a laboratory on Nevarro.”

Din couldn’t stop talking. The last rational part of his mind was screaming “NO!” but it was useless. It felt as if a huge dam had finally cracked inside him, and it couldn’t contain the pressure of the water behind it. He felt it churn and roar within his chest, all the feelings he had suppressed and had been only temporarily dulled by the alcohol, now were ten times more furious and more painful.

“At first they had hired me to hunt him down. They told me he was fifty. I found him and I gave him to the Imps… but I couldn’t leave him there. I knew that they wanted to hurt him, so I took him back. He was so small and they wanted to take his blood and… I couldn’t bear it.” He couldn’t stop talking. The dam had completely collapsed.

He talked and talked, recounting the events in that mad, wonderful adventure that had been being Grogu’s father.

“We went to this stone thing… at first I thought that nothing would happen. I didn’t know what to expect. And then he… there was this… bubble, kind of. It was like a force shield, but I couldn’t pass through it. Grogu was inside…”

It hurt. It hurt so much recounting it, the most shameful part of the whole ordeal.

“He was taken by those droids. I couldn’t protect him. I failed him. He was terrified and alone and they hurt him because I wasn’t good enough” he whispered, hugging himself into a small ball.

He didn’t expect Cobb’s arms wrapping around him, gently. To be honest, he had kind of forgotten that Cobb was even there, reduced as a mere presence in the overwhelming cascade of grief that he was experiencing at the moment.

“But you said that he is with the Jedis, now. Did you get him back?” murmured Cobb, putting a hand on Din’s helmeted head and gently pulling the Mando so that he would lean on him.

Din was shocked at the gesture. Nobody had hugged him since he had sworn the Creed. Twenty-two years. He had no idea how to react.

Cobb mistook his silence, and spoke in a quiet voice. “It’s ok. I know what it feels like… do you remember how I escaped from the Mining Consortium? When I came back and chased them from the town… for some it was too late. They had killed and brutalised and pillaged, and nothing would undo that. If I had been stronger, I could have protected the town when they came. But I wasn’t, and people died. I had to come to terms with that. Sometimes we are just… not strong enough. We are mortals, we are fallible. The only thing we can do is patch things up as best as we can.”

Din listened, his feelings churning in his chest with more vigour than ever. Awe added itself to the mix- awe at being understood. _Truly_ understood. Cobb had lived a similar experience where he had not been enough, even though it was hardly his fault. Even with a Mandalorian harness, it was still him against a whole troop of armed thugs. But he understood.

“Go on” prodded him Cobb again, gently. And Din, without even realising that his hands were now closed around Cobb’s arms, went on, telling the tale of Morak, of how he had to take off his helmet because Migs wouldn’t do his part; of how they escaped and how they boarded and cleaned Moff Gideon’s ship, how he had captured the man and found his child, and then how the mysterious Jedi had appeared almost from thin air flying an X-Wing, and had destroyed singlehandedly the platoon of Dark Soldiers. And then, he had taken the child away.

“I am dishonoured and covered in shame” he whispered, his voice raucous after talking for so long. “I shouldn’t even be wearing the armour. I wasn’t strong enough and Grogu was taken and hurt, and I had to take off the helmet as a punishment. I can’t be a Mandalorian… but I don’t know how to be anything else. If I take it off, I will break.”

There was silence for a minute. “You said that you met other Mandalorians. Mandalorians who don’t follow your particular Creed… the woman named Bo Katan, who is the direct descendant of the rulers of Mandalor. From what you told me, she doesn’t seem to think that you are any less of a Mandalorian for showing your face. Is that correct?”

“I… yes.”

“And she probably is the most qualified person to tell whether someone is or isn’t a Mandalorian, right?”

“Well… probably, yes.” Din’s tone was very uncertain.

“It seems to me that this… Death Watch of yours, made you a huge disservice. It made you forget that you are more than just one thing. No one can be just one thing. You are way more than just your armour. You might not be a member of this Death Watch any longer, but other Mandalorians still consider you one of them. They were happy to give you the opportunity to do the right thing. You are a brave man, a great warrior, a father, a grieving man who has just lost his child and what he thought was the only right way to live. Your soul is kind and just. How many would have simply trapped those two-faced bastards in the prison ship? How many would have simply captured Moff Gideon? Judging from the little I know about Mandalorians… you are one. You are one in all the ways that count.”

Din went still. He wanted to believe what he was being told- desperately. He could have again an identity, not exactly the same as before, but an identity. He wouldn’t be looking at himself and see a shattered man. It was so, so tempting…

“But…” he whispered “I let them take Grogu. I wasn’t strong enough to protect him.”

“As I told you, we are just mortals. Sometimes, the situation is not salvageable and we need to retreat and regroup. You were caught between a rock and a hard place on that hillside: a sniper was threatening your life while a second set of enemies was taking the child.”

“I should have just run for Grogu!” yelled Din jumping up from the sofa, suddenly furious at Cobb. The Marshal was showing him that he had been impotent, and that it was ok. It wasn’t ok- how it could ever be ok? Grogu deserved the universe, deserved safety and to be cradled to sleep at night and to chase frogs, not to be tossed around the galaxy by a man who had only one identity and wasn’t perfect.

“And the sniper would have killed you.”

“The beskar-”

“Might have not been enough. And what good would have done to Grogu, if the only being in the galaxy who cared about his safety died? What good would have it done to Mos Pelgo, if I had faced the Mining Cartel when I didn’t have the armour and got killed?” Cobb’s tone was not unkind, but very firm. “You were dealt the shittiest hand of Sabacc possible. You did your best to limit the damage, and now Grogu is safe and sound, knowing that his father will move mountains to save him.” 

Silence stretched between them. Cobb sat on the couch, staring at him, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. Din felt so incredibly annoyed- why did he have all the answers? Why couldn’t _he_ accept those answers?

“You are allowed to be human, Mando. You did your best- which incidentally, is still far more than any normal person could have done- and nobody can ask you more than that.”

Again, Din hugged himself: he started shaking his head, violently. He wanted to accept this. He wanted to be able to see himself as worthy, as whole- but, how could he? If anyone else had allowed Grogu to be taken from their custody, Din would have… what? Killed them? Probably not, but hated them for the rest of their lives, for sure. How could he hold himself to a lower standard?

“Stop that. You’ll give yourself the convulsions.” Again, Cobb’s arms were around him. When did he raise from the sofa? “You are drunk, tired, and emotionally wrecked. You need to sleep now. Come.” He dragged Din towards his bedroom, and helped him to get rid of the armour and boots.

“You take care of the helmet” murmured Cobb, squeezing briefly his hand before going to the door.

Din thought that he couldn’t possibly sleep. Thoughts were running like a herd of spooked bantha in his head. He wavered between guilt and hope and desperation.

“Does… does it ever go away?” he asked. "The guilt?"

Cobb’s hand clenched around the handle, then he sighed. “No” he said, after a brief hesitation. “It never does.” He exited from the room and closed the door behind him.

Din laid down. The blessed relief of sleep overcame him.

***

He woke up to the worst headache of his life. Even the head trauma he had sustained on Nevarro after the explosion of the power supply of the blast gun couldn’t compare. Noise was coming from the other side of the door- clearly Cobb was already up and about- and he desperately tried to shut it off by sticking his head under the pillow, but no dice.

He felt nauseous and terrible in general. Maybe something he had eaten last night had upset his stomach? Grudgingly he pulled himself out of the bed, grabbing the helmet… and then stopped. Through the pounding in his head, memories of the night before started to come back. He remembered talking to Cobb about Grogu. About everything that happened…

He clenched his hands around the helmet and frowned- a lancing spear of pain between his eyes forced him to relax.

Stars, that was a bad headache.

He needed something for it, he decided. The embarrassment was something for Future Din to deal with.

“Ah, the Sleeping Beauty finally wakes” grinned Cobb. “And judging by how you flinched” he continued lowering his voice “With a bantha sized hangover. Sit down, I’ll give you something for the headache.”

A few minutes later, Din found himself munching on some crackers and sipping water after having swallowed down a mild painkiller. Surprisingly, eating slowly was helping with the nausea, and it was slowly turning into actual hunger.

They didn’t talk much, and when Din finished the first packet of crackers, Cobb put a few more in front of him that had been generously spread with bantha butter and sugar, along with a glass of bantha milk.

“Better?”

“Yeah, a bit. Thanks.” Din paused. “Listen… about yesterday, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have dumped all that stuff on you. I guess I was just too drunk and… yeah. I’m sorry. You had to listen to a bunch of stuff that you probably didn’t give two bantha’s ticks about…”

“Hey, hey” Cobb interrupted, leaning forward and grabbing Din’s hand. He didn’t seem to notice that Din had gone completely rigid. “Don’t berate yourself. I’m happy that you trusted me so much that you told me all that happened, Mando. It was ugly and I’m really sorry that you had to go through it… and I really meant everything I said, last night. You are too hard on yourself, and… I know the feeling.” He gave one last squeeze to Din’s hand, then let him go.

“How… how many people died?”

Cobb hunched his shoulders. “Thirteen. I have all their names noted in the holopad… I wish I had been stronger, but I have to accept that I wasn’t. I take pride in the fact that while I was not strong at that time, I didn’t break, and I became the man that I needed to be to protect Mos Pelgo. I wasn’t strong enough, so I became strong enough. And you did the same. You accepted that by yourself you couldn’t save Grogu, so you put together an assault team and got him back. We could have surrendered, couldn’t we? I could have just bowed to the Cartel or flown away with the Mandalorian armour. You could have left the baby to his devices. But we didn’t. I like to think that this… this shows who we really are, much more that our abilities. We survived, and we did the right thing.”

Silence hung between them. Din was absent-mindedly rubbing his hand. “I think… I think that I can start from that. It won’t be easy, won’t it?”

“No, but you’ll do. It takes guts to face one’s demons, and you have that, in spades.” Cobb cocked his head to the side. “What is your name?” That was such a _non sequitur_ that Din was taken aback for a moment. “You need to start from somewhere. Start with not being ashamed of your name. Someday you won’t be ashamed of showing your face, either.”

Din didn’t talk for a moment, then he came to a decision. He took a deep breath.

“My name” he said “is Din Djarin.”

_Yes_ , he thought. _I can start from that_. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ssssooooooo... I really wanted to explore the trauma that Din went through (I want to tuck Din in a pocked and just carry him around because seriously he deserves all the nice things!). Hopefully I managed not to stick a foot in my mouth with descriptions of trauma. 
> 
> Originally I wanted more smut, but... you know the drill, these stories just come out on their own and they NEVER do what we want them to do.


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